Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It is the gift that keeps on giving, the tight control of the Scandinavian fist on the world of Metal, a fist that hammers home with vigour and force, the intelligent and the now customary. A fist that when opened holds a flower of acceptance into a world of Nordic style myths and legends that are ripe for the adaption of music and the sense of passion that Metal, when performed well and with undulating, heaving heart, more than captures the listener’s attention, it holds it for ransom and smiles with a soft caress.

Finnish band Entwine’s latest studio album, the entrancing and stirring Chaotic Nation, sees Mika Tauriainen, Tom Mikkola, Jaani Kähkönen, Joni Miettinen and Aksu Hanttu come bursting out of the blocks but with a more understated but nevertheless impressive sound that perhaps has been used to. Evolution is everything, evolution is progress and in the case of Entwine, that progression is to be heard, savoured and felt with a sense of completeness that harks well for both the album’s success and for the future of the group.

The album kicks more backsides into shape than a personal trainer finding life outside of the S.A.S. It is the sound of the burgeoning and the inescapable and in tracks such as Saint Of Sorrow, Plastic World, the stunning As We Arise, Adrenalize and The Evil Lives In Shadows, the rallying call of a thousand suns bursting in the sky high above Everest could not make more noise or be more awe-inspiring.

Chaotic Nation offers anarchy but one that is organised and direct, it offers a distant type of regret but one that is steeped in joy and blazing with anger deep down, it is an album which reinforces the thought of Scandinavian rule of the genre of Metal. Excellently delivered, Chaotic Nation is a law unto itself and one that is king of a wide and ever expanding realm.

Ian D. Hall